EICMA2009: Electric Motorcycles

You know when electric motorcycles are starting to become mainstream, when at a motorcycle exhibition like EICMA they spring up all around you. It used to be that electric motorcycles where a novelty, and often placed in separate areas.

Now, you'll mostly find electric motorcycles and scooters at "normal" manufacturer stands. Yes, EICMA still had a special "Green Planet" area, where many electric vehicles were presented (like the New Vectrix).

Here are a few electric ones that caught my attention.

Peugeot

French Peugeot is a big manufacturer of scooters, usually 50 and 125 cc ones. But like most self-respecting manufacturers they also showed off their electric scooters, the e-Vivacity (the Vivacity with the "e" is an existing 50 cc scooter).

The e-Vivacity, like what the name implies, is a scooter for the city. It's the equivalent of a 50 cc scooter.

The scooter will speed up to 45 kph, perfect for school kids. It promises a range of 80 kms.

The e-Vivacity weighs only 115 kgs, and the battery can last 40,000 kms.

Elmoto

The German Elmoto caught my attention since it has an unusual design. It looks a bit like a bicycle, but it hasn't got any pedals.

The Elmoto HR-2 also falls under the 50 cc category, with a top speed of 45 kph.

The 48V, 25 Ah lithium-ion battery will give the motorcycle a range of 65 kms.

Using a normal charger, you'll charge 80% in 4 hours, but using the special fast charger, you can reach 80% charge in 2 hours.

French made XOR is a strange electric motorcycle. XOR stands for Xtraordinary Object on Road and the company have three models of these strange electric motorcycles.

The whole concept of the XOR is that the vehicle folds into a sort-of-a-cube, allowing it to be put away with the minimum of space, typically on your yacht. The "thing" looks like R2D2 in sleep mode.... cute.

They have the X02 in a 125 cc equivalent version, and two 50 cc equivalent versions.

The XO2 125 weighs 83 kgs, and after it has been unfolded, it is capable of a respectable top speed of 105 kph, and a range between 50 and 70 kms - enough to get your fresh croissants when mooring your yacht at St. Tropez. It only takes 2 hours 40 minutes to recharge the battery.

The XO2 50 comes in two variations; Sport and Urban. The Sport weighs 76 kgs, the Urban 68 kgs. Both have a maximum speed of 45 kph, but state that they can go faster, 75 and 60 kph respectively.

Piaggio is always on the cutting edge of things, just have a look at their MP3 scooter. Piaggio presented the groovy looking USB (Urban Sport Bike) hybrid scooter concept at EICMA.

The hybrid concept scooter has a two-stroke gasoline guzzling engine and an electric engine.

The electrical part of the hybrid can be plugged in for recharging, and can reach a top speed of over 100 kph, and a sustained average speed of 60 kph. When riding on the lithium-polymer battery alone, you can reach a top speed of 60 kph and a range of 50 kms.

The scooter delivers a good torque, around 200 Nm, and using the hybrid in town will net you about 1.5 liters per 100 kms of fuel consumption.

As usual at these shows, Piaggio didn't have enough press kits for everyone (must be too expensive for them), so I don't have much more info. But the scooter looks really nice, specially with the seat back for solo riders (the pillion seat folds up to become your seat back).

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